Seeing Michael disappear from sight, Krank knew that he had shot him. Sensing imminent triumph, he drove his Humvee up to the left side of the slowing truck. He saw Lorie’s blond hair flying in the wind as she was still trying to drive the truck. Krank pointed his gun out of the Humvee’s passenger window as he gained on them. Just a few more feet and he would have a clear shot into the driver’s seat of the truck. He suddenly felt the rush of a predator that knew his prey was inches from his claws. Any second and he would put a few rounds in the blonde’s head.
Suddenly, Michael sat up in the backseat, SCAR in hand. The assault rifle blazed to life in full automatic mode directly into the Humvee’s front seat. After expending the entire contents of the magazine, Michael collapsed backward onto the blood soaked seat. He closed his eyes and thought that he heard another crack from a rifle. But since he had just emptied his last magazine and Lorie was preoccupied with trying to keep the truck on the road, the sound must have been his confused and failing mind hallucinating.
The front left tire of the Humvee disintegrated and it drifted to the left, forcing the one remaining pursuit car off the road, where it crashed into the ditch. Then the Humvee turned drastically to the right. The front right bumper of Krank’s Humvee smashed into the truck, and both vehicles ran off the right side of the road. Lorie screeched as she stood on the brakes, and the truck skidded to a halt. The Humvee stopped only a few yards from the truck.
From the backseat, Michael managed to open the door and roll out of the truck onto the ground. The burning pain in his shoulder was unbearable. He rolled to his back in the long, wild grass and gasped. Above his head, the late-morning sky was a beautiful, deep blue. It brought back the memory of him and Lorie on the lawn outside the university library. Those were good days, days when the world was right.
Krank stumbled from around the back corner of his Humvee. Limping and dragging his AK-47, he was bleeding from wounds in his right arm, torso, and left leg. Michael had done some damage, but it wasn’t enough. Krank was the devil. He was immortal. He could not die.
Krank leered at Michael, showing his meth-rotted teeth. He looked like a shark as he limped nearer, like a giant from Michael’s perspective. Michael had nothing left. His gun was empty, and he was bleeding out. He didn’t even have enough strength to attempt to crawl away.
Krank lifted his AK-47 and pointed the barrel at Michael’s head.
Michael closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable.
Michael heard loud bangs and flinched, but he felt no pain. Wondering if he had died and left for the afterlife, he opened his eyes. The booms he had heard came from Lorie’s gun. Lorie had jumped out of the truck. Pointing her SCAR directly at Krank, she emptied the entire magazine into his body.
Jerking this way and that with every bullet, Krank stumbled backward. A look of surprise spread across his face. He collapsed to the ground and was finally still.
Dropping the empty gun, Lorie rushed to Michael’s side and knelt beside him. As she desperately tried to apply pressure to his wounds, Michael tried to talk. Nothing came out. His mouth moved, but he couldn’t speak. His mouth felt dry, like sand.
“Stay with me, Michael!” she pleaded.
Sandy had jumped out of the truck and was trying in her own way to revive Michael by licking his hand.
He felt his peripheral eyesight starting to blur. This must be how dying feels, he thought. Letting his head fall to the side, he saw Krank’s remaining gang vehicles racing down the road toward them.
Lorie heard the approaching cars, but despite the imminent doom bearing down on them, she concentrated on Michael. They had come too far to lose the battle now. This could not be how the story ended. It wasn’t fair!
Krank’s gang was now almost upon them.
Then, from all around her, Lorie heard a salvo of heavy gunfire erupt and continue. The sound was deafening, unrelenting. Looking up from Michael’s bloody shirt, she saw the approaching cars turn this way and that. They were in chaos. One of the vehicles exploded in a ball of flame. Windshields were being shattered, and bullet holes appeared everywhere.
She heard a whoosh as something big flew through the air at high speed. An RPG rocket collided with a gang member’s car. The car burst into flames, flew into the air, and rolled over onto a neighboring car. They both became engulfed in flames. Some of the pursuing vehicles came to a halt as smoke started pouring out of the engine blocks. Other cars crashed into each other or into nearby trees. The remaining cars rolled to a stop; there seemed to be no one left alive behind the wheel. Bullet holes in the front windshields were evidence that the drivers had been shot.
As suddenly as the gunfire began, it stopped. Lorie looked around in confusion as men and women dressed in camouflage seemed to magically appear from behind trees, bushes, and other well-concealed hiding places. They swept their firearms back and forth over the entire field of broken and twisted metal, searching for any movement. She had no idea who these new strangers were and if they meant any harm to her or Michael.
As Michael lay on the ground, he could see what was happening, but his mind couldn’t focus enough to comprehend it. He was very tired and just wanted to sleep. With fading vision, he looked up at Lorie’s anxious face and knew that his last thought would be about how beautiful she was silhouetted against the rich, blue sky.
Then, another face unexpectedly broke into his field of vision. As it got closer to Michael’s, it looked vaguely familiar, but his mind could not concentrate. For some reason, he finally felt peace.
“It’s about time you got here!” the man said.
“Hi, Dad,” Michael said, and he managed to smile.
Epilogue
Steven Colburn, CEO of Innocu-Tech, slid his plush chair away from his opulent wooden desk and stood up. The overhead lights were still on, but he didn’t really need them because of the bright sunshine streaming in from his floor-to-ceiling window. From his huge office on the top level of the immaculate skyscraper, he could see the entire city. He walked over to the window and looked down at the city of Seattle beneath his feet. He felt like some mythological god presiding over his subjects. The view from up here was spectacular. The only view that was better was the one at night, when he could look down and see all the city lights twinkling. His city was up and running with all the comforts of modern-day society. Meticulous planning had prevented any setbacks or disruptions in their lifestyles.
His thoughts were interrupted by a brief knock on the door.
“Come in,” he said expectantly.
The door opened, and his beautiful young secretary walked in. “Your coffee,” she said, placing the cup on his desk. In her other hand, she was carrying a stack of papers she had just printed off.
“Thank you,” Steven replied. “Are these the reports we’ve been waiting on?”
“Yes, sir,” Sylvia replied. “Is there anything else?”
“Have my driver pull around. I’ll be leaving right after I finish with the Group.”
“Your wife called a few minutes ago. She wanted to confirm that you were on the way to meet her at the restaurant.”
“I’ll be on my way shortly. Thank you, Sylvia. That will be all for now.”
As she left the room, Steven turned back to the city. It was such a beautiful landscape. And it was all under his control. Soon, this city would pale in comparison to the land he would govern. As he stood there at the window, thousands of properly vaccinated troops were preparing for the initial assault.
The cell phone lying on his desk rang. Not only was the electricity still running, but the city’s cell-phone towers were still operational. These were just a few luxuries prepared beforehand by the superb planning and unlimited money from the Group. Even though the Group was his salvation, he still had a twinge of nervousness and fear whenever he had to talk with them. He had never actually met anyone from the Group. All of his contacts with them had been through the phone and courier deliveries. Without a face to put with the voi
ce, the anonymity of the players behind the scenes made Steven anxious. The phone rang again.
He strode quickly over to his desk and answered it. He listened intently to the voice at the other end of the line. “Yes, I just received the analyst’s report. It seems that everything is going perfectly as scheduled. Our bases throughout the country report little to no resistance. The population has been decimated as planned and is now ripe for a controlling body. Even if they don’t realize it, they need someone to lead them. Phase Two is now complete.”
Again, he listened to the person speaking on the other end. “Yes, sir. The group in Texas remains strong. Same with the one in New England. But they are just rag-tag groups of survivalists who somehow have managed to put together organized, armed communities. They will not be able to withstand a full, head-on assault for long. But there is a concern with a new militant group that is getting more organized in the Southeast. Preliminary intelligence reports that this fanatical group of people is taking chunks of territory by the day.”
Steven Colburn again paused while he listened. “We thought that the militant group in Cincinnati would pose some minor problems, but the latest drone flyovers have shown no activity. The people have just disappeared, like the Pilgrim colony that vanished without a trace at Roanoke in the sixteenth century. There is no sign of them. Other than those main groups, there is little resistance remaining.” Steven turned back to look out his window. “Just a few pockets of people here and there. Nothing to concern ourselves with. I’m confident that they’ll welcome us with open arms. They are so desperate for help that they’ll submit to anyone.”
He listened some more. “Yes, everyone has been vaccinated. There’s no chance of anyone on our team contracting the virus. We’re ready to initiate Phase Three. Our global affiliates are just waiting for the go-ahead order. The population levels around the world are down ninety to ninety-five percent, and there are few, if any, organized groups out there that can show any effective resistance.”
The voice on the other end of the cell phone spoke briefly.
“Yes, sir,” Steven replied and then terminated the call.
Grabbing his jacket from the chair, Steven Colburn walked out of his office, through his secretary’s office, down the hall, and into a glass-lined room full of his hand-picked generals. “Initiate Phase Three protocols. We have the green light. Within a week, Oregon and California will be ours. Soon, the rest of the country will be under our control. Long live the NRE!”
His commanders chanted the proper response and then immediately got on their cell phones. As Steven Colburn walked out of the building to join his wife for an exquisite evening out, tanks, soldiers, and assault helicopters were deployed from their underground holding areas.
Steven could see himself as one of the leaders of the NRE. They would conquer the nation and force everyone to either support them or die. Maybe, if he impressed the Group, they would crown him as Caesar. Or, even better, invite him to be a member. He shuddered to think of what they would do to him if he failed. The troops continued their advance out of the city.
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